


Escape Hatch

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 19:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20296780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: This is normally the part where Atton runs.





	Escape Hatch

His name these days was Atton Rand. 

He’d gone by many others – the life of a smuggler, after all. One tended to accumulate a lot of alternate identities when running items of questionable legality. And he had a particular tendency to change whatever name he travelled under as it suited him and as he needed to escape the various forms of law enforcement. Sometimes, he’d thought about changing his face to match, but that was a little too extreme for him.

At any rate, his life had been built around running away – from his past, from his oath to the Republic, from the Sith... Most of all from himself.

And then he met Dak Hain, and his life turned upside.

He’d been... satisfied, at least. Sure, he’d gotten himself arrested by the local security forces on Peragus, and the station had been infested by a psychotic assassin droid that seemed to have a grudge against all organic life and had murdered almost everyone else on the station, but before that, he’d been doing pretty well in the ‘running’ category. Even when he’d been caught, he’d been able to talk his way out of the worst of it, at least long enough to find a way to slip out of whatever cage he’d been through in. That was usually when he came up with another name.

He’d gotten very good at running, making sure that whatever was going to happen, he’d manage to escape it. After all, that “whatever” that happened was frequently something bad, aimed for his head.

He’d never really stopped to wonder if the “whatever” in question might end up being something good.

Because, he was starting to realize, Dak could easily be the kind of thing that really could be very good for him. And he had no idea how to respond to that. 

Atton never really did the thing where he let himself become emotionally entangled in things. It never really had good conclusions, in his experiences. People were waiting to take advantage of you, and, if they weren’t, then they were easily suckered in by those who did. Either way, you got in trouble when you let yourself rely on people for more than what they offered you in the moment. That wasn’t even starting on the Jedi thing, either. The Jedi were pretty much a guarantee of something bad, in Atton’s experience.

The Jedi woman’s face flashed in his mind at the thought. He’d never even gotten her name before she’d sacrificed herself. He still didn’t know why – at the time, he’d been nothing worth saving. He’d been... He’d been a monster. He’d broken Jedi, made them give themselves over to Revan’s cause. He’d done it all willingly, too. 

He was the something bad for Dak. For the Exile. He didn’t deserve to be here with him. 

And despite that, Dak had trusted him with a lightsaber. Had opened him up to the Force. 

Had let him into his bed.

Atton shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be on this ship. He should run. He should-

“Atton?” Dak’s voice, hazy with sleep, broke the haze of self-recriminations in Atton’s mind. He turned to look at the other man, pulling himself up. The blanket of their bunk slid away, revealing the Jedi Exile’s bare chest. Atton had traced the scars there earlier in the night, as he’d moved down, reaching the waistline of the other man’s underclothes-

He stopped himself. If he didn’t deserve to be here, he certainly didn’t deserve to have done any of what he had with Dak, and particularly not to think about it.

Dak had always been prone to recognizing the things unsaid, however. He pulled himself up, looking to where Atton stood, on the opposite side of the bunkroom from the beds. “Atton. I wouldn’t need the Force to be able to read that something’s wrong. Something is bothering you.”

For a moment, Atton was sure he’d deflect. He’d make a joke, brush off Dak’s concern, try to convince him it was nothing, the late night jitters of someone fully aware of the suicidal nature of the mission they were on – reassemble the Jedi Council, face the Sith in mortal combat, actually try to survive the experience... No sensible person expected they’d manage to accomplish all of those things. That’s how he handled things.

That was how he set things up, right before running again. Set them at ease so that they’d relax, that way they wouldn’t jab you with a Bothan stunner or something and turn you in (Mira had been a little too vivid about that...), give you a chance to slip out the back door next time you had a chance to make an escape.

And yet... When he looked at Dak, he felt that burning need to run pulse, and then seem to slip away from him. And instead of offering a lie...

“This isn’t normally how I handle these things.”

The truth spilled out.

Dak moved to a seated position on the bed. “Meaning that you’d normally be beating a hasty retreat from those icky feelings right about now at any other time?” he asked.

It had been a very real thing about the relationship that they’d fallen in to, that Dak could read him so easily. That might be why Atton had been dealing with the genuine fear of the possible good things of staying with him. Dak could read him so well, and Atton had never stuck around long when someone could. 

Definitely avoided getting naked with them, either. 

“Something like that.”

Dak was silent, though in contemplation or just waiting for Atton to continue, he wasn’t sure. Either way, Atton wasn’t sure he liked the silence. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, though, had no idea how to fill the emptiness.

Finally, Dak did it himself, managing to find the words he wanted. “Are you scared because you want to run, or because you want to stay?” 

That was the question, in the end. Atton just hadn’t figured out how he was going to answer it. He cared for Dak, with more intensity and depth than he’d thought possible in a very long time. That was, in the end, part of what scared him about this. Because he wanted to stay, even as he wanted to run.

Atton wanted to articulate this all, but he didn’t know if he could – it wasn’t that he was scared of the self-reflection necessary to put it into words. He was capable of it. But he didn’t verbalize it. He just spent his time going over it in his head, letting the thoughts consume him. They fed the darkness, the kind of thinking that had brought him to that point where he’d been a willing enforcer for...

“You shouldn’t care for me like this, you know.”

Dak quirked an eyebrow at that. “I shouldn’t?”

“I’m... Dak, you know I’m not a good man. I’ve done... questionable things.” A pause. “No, they were monstrous. I... I gave myself to the Sith. I tortured Jedi. I broke Jedi. I was willing to make them as broken and as twisted as...” He hesitated to say it. But he had to make the word come. “...as me.”

There was a deafening silence after that. It was the kind of silence that was really impossible to break through with any of the usual platitudes. Atton had said it plain. He was a broken, warped, shattered human being. There was no reason that a man like Dak would or should stay with him. Now he didn’t need to worry about running. Surely Dak would recognize the truth of his words, and he’d walk away, take the choice out of his hands. 

Dak rose from the bed. Atton was sure that he’d head out of the room – granted, the alternative to sleeping in this room was going and laying down in the same dormitory as the old witch, maybe head into the cargo hold, or just curl up on the couch in the main hold, but surely he was going to walk away – and never speak to him again. Perhaps even demand that Atton get off at the next port that the Ebon Hawk docked at.

It would be bitterly ironic, Atton supposed, considering that he’d complained about being stuck with going to Telos after their narrow escape from Peragus. Now... He’d stuck it out this long, and now used up all the goodwill that Dak had-

Dak’s arms wrapped around Atton’s waist. The other man was pulling Atton tight against him. Atton went stiff, not sure what was going on. He’d been sure – he’d convinced himself – that Dak would dismiss him at this point, and now... What was this?

“Atton.” Dak’s voice was soft, almost murmured against Atton’s skin. “I came into this with my eyes wide open. I know what you were. I understand that there are things in your past that you did, convinced of their rightness at the time. I heard your honesty when you asked to learn how to use the Force to protect. I know the man you are trying to be. Even if you fear living up to that possibility, the person who you want to become, you are still doing everything you can to become that better man.”

For a long moment, Atton let himself be lost in the gentle touch of Dak, of his lover. He wanted this to be true. To last. He wanted to be able to forgive, to be forgiven. To be told he was worth that forgiveness, despite all the dark deeds that he still carried with him, that would always be there.

And that was the thing. They would always be there. 

The old witch had once threatened him, told him he was a prisoner of his own mind and memories. He’d never be free of them. It had been her way of putting him in his place, so far as she was concerned. And it had done the trick. He had heard her threat, to unlock every dark thought that he’d had crawling around in his head. And he had a lot of them. He couldn’t even keep the seal closed on them, and she would have unleashed them all.

“I don’t see how I get better,” he said, not even fully aware of saying anything. 

“Day by day,” Dak said softly. “It’s not easy.” A pause. “I know it’s not.”

The first thought in Atton’s mind was to question how he could, he was a Jedi. And then, softly, it whispered in his own mind.

Malachor.

The destruction of the fleets.

On the order of one man.

Him.

Everything about that decision had lingered with Dak, for the last ten years. How all of those men and women fighting had been dependent on his orders, his actions. More, they’d been looking to him to act as their protector as they threw themselves into danger. As they gave their lives, and depended on him to make the choices that would make their potential sacrifices worthwhile.

All those lives, snuffed out in an instant at his order. A weight and burden that Dak carried with him still, to this day. 

He hadn’t tortured those lives, but he was the one who’d given the command. He carried that weight. It was something that he carried, just as much as Atton carried those he’d tortured.

“You’ve done horrible things. I’m not trying to completely wipe it away as if it never happened. It did. It marked you, same as my past marks me. It’s not that your past is wiped away. It makes you the man you are now. But you consider that past something to regret, a mistake you would change if you could. That’s the thing that makes you someone who deserves to have the opportunity... to be loved. You’re not loved in spite of the things you’ve done, it’s because... you still deserve to be loved, even with that history.”

There was silence between them for a while after that, though somehow, it wasn’t the awkward kind that Atton had thought they’d never move past. It had a comfort to it, like the embrace he was held in. A comfort that told him that he should believe his lover’s words.

Huh.

His lover.

Because... he did love Dak. He was in love with this man. Running from him would mean he was abandoning him, and, if absolutely nothing else, Atton knew in the depths of his being, he would never be able to live with leaving him to face the Sith hunting him without him. He was certainly capable, but... 

Some part of Atton, a part that he hadn’t fully known was there, some shred of loyalty – not to organizations, not to governments, not to councils of self-important schuttas who don’t give a damn about the people their decisions impact, but to people, and, specifically, this man who was holding him tight this second – told him plain: His fate would be the same as the other’s. 

The realization prompted a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m pretty ridiculous, standing here in my underwear, talking myself out of being where I want to be, aren’t I?” he murmured.

“I don’t know. For some reason, I’ve noted some momentous things have happened while I’ve been in my underwear,” Dak said with a grin. 

Atton couldn’t exactly argue that one.

He cleared his throat. “So... Probably going to be a busy day tomorrow.” Because when wasn’t it busy when hunting Jedi Masters and evading the Sith? “Suppose we should go and get some more sleep.”

And, as he settled in beside Dak, Atton realized that he had no desire to leave.


End file.
